Nina Simone 1933 - 2003

The haunting genius of the queen of the blues

'They say everything can be replaced. They say every distance is not near. So I remember every face of every man who put me here. Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.'

Nina Simone has gone, her light shining from the west down to the east. But here she is still, singing in my study with the rain hitting the windows, her unmistakable voice carving and denting the air.

When people as talented as Nina Simone die, you think they will never be replaced, that their talent is a thing of the past. You can tell Bessie from Billie, Ella from Dinah and you know Nina right away. But how many distinct voices follow you around like hers for life? Haunting you, hanging in the air long after you've fallen out of love?

I first fell for Nina Simone when Sylvia, a friend of mine, brought Baltimore to Scotland in the late Seventies and 'Mr Bojangles' stole my heart. I could just see him and it seemed Nina could, too.

She had a way of singing that made you think she had experienced everything she sang about, that she got the blues most every night. She had a way of understanding everything that the world hurled at her: love, death, racism.

Sylvia committed suicide aged 23, a young, gifted and black woman who threw herself from her council flats in Manor House, London. At her funeral, Simone sang that same song again: 'Any day now. Any day. I shall be released.'

Baltimore. I had never been to Baltimore but it is one of my favourites because of the way Simone sang the line: 'Oh Baltimore Ain't it hard just to live.'

Whether a song was written by her or not, she made it her own pretty quickly. 'I Put a Spell on You', 'Don't Let me be Misunderstood', 'I Shall be Released', 'Baltimore' and 'Mr Bojangles' feel to me just as much Simone songs as those she wrote herself: 'Mississippi Goddam', 'Sugar in my Bowl', 'Four Women', 'Fodder on my Wings'.

She was regal and noble, the deserving queen of jazzy gospel blues. She seemed to know every trouble that a person could have. Her voice held it all, reaching out to many different musical expressions and social and political beliefs.

When I listen to Nina Simone, I feel as if I am living inside the song with her. Her voice pulls you into her world, a world of poverty, racism, a world that kills schoolchildren in Alabama, a world that makes your heart heavy, your heart soar. She had a way of making me join her as I listen, as if I were marching with her. Angry at her angers; sad with her sadness.

I went to hear Nina Simone in the Eighties, when she sang at Ronnie Scott's a lot. I'll never forget the drama of her entrance. She looked magnificent, queenly, wearing a white fur coat and plumes. But she was led on as if she was blind and frail.

Then she took her place at her throne, the piano. She stared out at the audience as if we were a troubled sea; scowling, her wavy eyebrows appeared to be testing us, guessing what kind of people we were. She seemed annoyed by our presence. She sang her first set and, when she came back for the second set, she started singing the same songs again. When nobody complained, she moved on. We had passed the test of her genius.

People are forgiving of genius, true burning, scorching talent, happy to be with it, glowing in the same room, humming. She was blessed with that voice of hers, a gift she was given before she was even born. Her mother sang and wanted her to be a classical pianist. Nina loved Bach and you can hear some of his viola heartstrings in her voice, I think, in lyrics like: 'My father always promised me that we would live in France. We'd go boating on the Seine and I would learn to dance.' A sort of aching.

Later that night at Ronnie Scott's, I shouted a request for 'Sugar in my Bowl' and she looked straight at me, even through me, it seemed at the time. Pointing her long beautiful finger, she said: 'Sugar in my bo-wllllll I'll be sing -ing laterrrrrr.' I nearly passed out.

Nina Simone was a complex woman, not necessarily totally likeable. A friend of mine had her to her house for Christmas. When I expressed envy, she told me it had been a total nightmare, with Simone on the verge of emotional collapse, completely out of it.

'My skin is black, my arms are long, my hair is woolly, my back is strong, strong enough to take the pain inflicted again and again_' Nina Simone never forgot herself and because she never forget herself, she remembered us all. Her beautiful voice is still lifting and soaring and is outside the window, now flying, a black bird in the blue rain.

· Why Don't You Stop Talking, a collection of stories by Jackie Kay, is published by Picador